They are better known for their commitment to fake tan than solving developing-world poverty. But five so-called Wags have been paid by the BBC to visit the slums of South Africa and report on the orphan crisis, HIV pandemic and social breakdown before next month's football World Cup.
The women went to Cape Town last September to film a five-part documentary for BBC3 called Wags, Kids and World Cup Dreams, which starts on Sunday at 9pm.
The rookie reporters included Chantelle Tagoe, Emile Heskey's partner, and Ellie Darby, girlfriend of West Ham defender Matthew Upson. In what must surely be a televisual contravention of the Trade Descriptions Act, three former wives and girlfriends also took part: Elen Rivas, Frank Lampard's former partner, and the ex-girlfriends of Jermaine Pennant and Jermain Defoe – Amii Grove and Imogen Thomas.
As part of the deal, the women will each star in a half-hour documentary focusing on their "glamorous" lives back in the UK.
Yesterday the BBC confirmed the women each received a contributor's fee, but denied it was crass to send them to report on serious subjects.
"We were making a documentary for our core audience of 16- to 24-year-olds who are probably aware of the World Cup but not of the underbelly of South Africa. Because they are interested in Wags, they might watch and learn something," said a spokeswoman.
She said the women were chosen for their "emotional and physical" readiness. "There was a really wide selection process and it was fairly clear that these were the ones that were best suited to doing that sort of project in terms of stamina and interest levels," she said.
In the series, the women are first taken to the Baphumelele children's home in Khayelitsha, a crime-ridden shanty town on the outskirts of Cape Town.
They begin working 16-hour shifts, caring for children who have been abandoned, abused and are HIV-positive.
In another instalment, the women volunteer for three projects in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, working with charities and organisations that help women and girls. Formerly an affluent white suburb under apartheid, Hillbrow is now the home of the poor and dispossessed, illegal immigrants and criminal gangs.
"Elen and Ellie work days and nights with former prostitutes, going into brothels to teach sex workers the dangers of HIV infection, and trying to persuade them to leave the brothels to begin a new life," according to the pre-show publicity.
Meanwhile, "Chantelle is based at the controversial Central Methodist church, which offers 3,000 immigrants a place to sleep. In the creche she meets three-year-old Moses – a withdrawn boy who was abandoned at the church when his mother never returned to pick him up. Chantelle is drawn to him and makes a connection. 'What a week's wages of a footballer could do, imagine what it would do in a place like this … £5,000 would feed a family for 10 years. It puts it all into perspective.' At the end of her stay she pledges to sponsor Moses until he is 18."
The women were not put up in luxury hotels but slept at the projects during filming, the BBC said.
Defending another celebrity poverty documentary earlier this year, in which Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan investigated child trafficking, BBC3 controller Danny Cohen said: "Finding a celebrity who genuinely cares about the issue really helps pull in a crowd that wouldn't otherwise switch on. But you have to be careful. If you get a rent-a-celeb, this audience can spot it a mile off."